Triphenylborane in Metal-Free Catalysis
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
See attached.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thanks for the comments. We have corrected all typos and spelling errors.
Reviewer 2 Report
1. All the schemes should be changed into Figures. Also, the figure captions should be marked the copyright from the original content.
2. Does the future of study lie in this area? Are there other more promising areas in the field which could be progressed?
3. “it has also become apparent that tuning the Lewis acidity of the catalyst can be an important factor in achieving new modes of substrate activation and selectivity.” The updated refs could be highlighted, such as J. Org. Chem. 84, 14627−14635 (2019); Org. Lett. 22, 8086−8090 (2020); Org. Chem. Front., 8, 4554–4559 (2021).
4. I suggest the authors list a Table and compare the synthesized condition and yield.
Author Response
- None of the schemes or figures have been copied and pasted from the original documents. They were all generated by the authors and are different from the originals. In so far, I do not see the need for requesting copyrights. I would also not change the schemes to figures. However, if the editor wants me to, I am more than happy to do so.
- There is a lot of chemical space for developing metal-free catalysts for organic transformations. Lewis acid catalysis utilizing electron-deficient organoboranes is just one area of many.
- Thank you very much for the suggested literature. However, we decided not to include these papers because our mini-review is focused on BPh3 and its catalytic activity as a Lewis acid - J. Org. Chem. 84, 14627−14635 (2019); the catalyst is NaBEt3H, which is not a metal-free system and is not a classical Lewis acid catalyst - Org. Lett. 22, 8086−8090 (2020); here a yttrium catalyst was used, which again is not a metal-free catalyst - Org. Chem. Front., 8, 4554–4559 (2021); this system is based on KOBut/BEt3.
- I do not see the need for it because this mini-review is about the role of BPh3 in metal-free catalysis not about a comparison of all reported catalysts for a given catalytic transformation.